This Is How It Had To End
by Monica121
Summary: Perfection. The unobtainable. Maybe this was how it had to end.


Okay, I saw Titanic for the first time in probably about two years last weekend. I've seen it before, and I've always loved it. I always cry. But this time, there was something different. I just couldn't get the story out of my head, and I knew I had to write this. For all those fans of mine, I will probably update my stories soon. But this was something I had to write. I apologize in advanced if it's depressing. It's not really meant to be. It's just... thoughts.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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Perfection. The epitome of the human life cycle. We are born, we live, we die. We are born pure. Whole. _Perfect._ After childhood, things have changed our perfection. We've been hurt, and scarred, and marred. Sometimes forever. We live our lives, some of us with greater challenges than others. We live to be happy. So we live to be perfect. Right?

That's the thing about perfection. We sometimes work our whole lives to reach it. But we can't. Maybe we don't want to. Happiness can't always be found in perfection, after all. And as an occasional gambler, I'm willing to bet that it is only _rarely _that we find happiness in perfection. Lucky for you though, I'm not really in a place to make those kinds of wagers.

See, I have two theories. The first one is that people get bored with perfection. They get unhappy with it. Perfection can get old, after all. People, they begin to look for flaws, and end up tearing things apart because of it. They're so set on finding the bad, searching for it even, they forget to see the good. The second theory is that perfection is impossible to maintain. Someone is bound to make a mistake. But you grow so happy with what you have, with that perfection you've obtained, that when you slip up, you just can't handle it. You're destroyed, distraught, broken. You've lost that pureness, and you probably won't be able to get it back. And things still get torn apart. Neither option is particularly appealing.

I'm not saying that given a choice, I would choose to die. Not at all. If it were up to me, we'd still be together. We'd both be happy and alive. But we're not. So being apart so long has given me time to think.

We did in three days what most people do in years. And we did it perfectly. Please don't misunderstand... Obviously the means by which everything was done were... less than ideal. But what we created... what we shared... _that _was perfect. It was pure and clean, and beautiful and real.

Now, here's where my theories can be applied. Had things turned out differently... if things had turned out in our favor... how would the entire thing have ended? Had they turned out so fantastically, and we got off the ship together and everything was perfect... what would have happened? What if one of us had gotten bored? The good things in life are magnified by the bad. It's a fact of life. We appreciate the sweet, wonderful moments so much more when we have the bad to recall, to remind us just how lucky we can be. What happened that night... It could have made me treat what we had like glass. I'd be so concerned with protecting it, and keeping it safe, that I could have forgotten just what we loved about each other in the first place. The thought has crossed my mind a few times-- I would have made _so_ sure that the person that I love was safe and healthy and happy... it's quite possible that I would have destroyed our relationship. Sheltered and cradled it too much. Smothered it.

The other possibility scares me even more. What if I didn't live up to expectations? Now, I like to believe that I would have done _everything_ in my power to make sure that I never messed up. That I would always be the person that made things okay, and never brought anything harmful to our relationship. But I know that then I was only human. Because of that, I could simply do the best I was capable of, and that would have to suffice. As a person, mistakes are bound to be made. But if I had made a mistake that hurt her in anyway, I wouldn't be able to handle that. Especially because I knew how perfect they had been.

How do you leave a situation like that? Let's say I had lived. I know when I got on that ship I wasn't the marrying type. At least not yet. Living through that... would that have changed my mind? Would Rose and I have married quickly. Settled down quickly? These are the things I think about. I had never held a really steady job. I was an artist. Would Rose have accepted that? Or would I have given it up, to give her a more stable life? Would we have gone to Santa Monica, and had our adventures, and _then _maybe settled down? Or would the _Titanic_ have changed us so much that we desperately needed something to hold on to? And because of that, would we have lost the fire that had drawn us together? Would we have been able to stay together, changing who we were completely? I mean, let's face it. Rose and I may not have made it if I had lived. I don't think I could have handled that.

The answers to these questions will never be answered. I can only dwell on them, until I wait for her to return to me. Maybe we're lucky. Where she is coming to find me... maybe things really _can _be perfect. Maybe those things that I spent so many decades thinking about;... maybe they don't apply where we'll be.

Only time will tell. I just know that the perfection that I had with Rose Dewitt-Bukater for those three short days will go unmatched. Maybe I had to die. Maybe nothing is meant to be that perfect. Maybe some people are meant to die because they've done the greatest thing they could ever do. Maybe _I _died because Rose was my destiny. Maybe she was set to be the greatest thing in my life. Maybe I had to die because I couldn't live going through the rest of my life having already experiencing something so perfect.

It's like this, to me: a person gets so much perfection in their life time. And I know, I'm sure of it, that I experienced all of mine on the titanic. Because of this, there was nothing greater for me left to do. I had left my mark on the world--even if it had only been on one person.

I can go on with that. I'm happy with that. I used up all the perfect that I got until the after life. But I wouldn't change a minute of it. I died having done everything I would ever need to.

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I'm sorry if it was... depressing. It's just something I think about every time I see the movie. If he -had- lived, how would it have ended? As much as I love all those Jack lives, they marry, and live happily ever after, I just can't see it like that. There was only one way to end this movie. Even if I wish he had lived.

Also, this is listed under spiritual because... Well, I think it's quite a spiritual thing to resign yourself to having things end. It kind of contemplates life and death, and I think that's pretty spiritual. I feel rather accomplished with this. Even if no one likes it... I'm proud of it.

Let me know when you realized it was Jack talking ;) I didn't want you to figure out who was speaking right away.

Love,  
Monica


End file.
